A less practiced hand could have given her a garish effect. But she had done everything just right, and it was so, so Paula that she actually looked pretty.
I almost didn’t recognize her.
But I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I said, “You look hot.”
She reached out and pinched my cheek. “Thanks, babe.” She left the door standing open as she bustled about the apartment, checking JoAnne’s water bowl, hunting for her keys, finding them, and gathering up a big black leather satchel. She paused at her dresser to spritz some cologne behind her ears.
Turning to smile at me, she said, “Can I help you? I have about five minutes before I need to head out.”
I knew I was being selfish. Not only was I pretty sure I was about to make her late for work, I also would bet money on the fact that I was about to ruin her day. Part of me wished I could just leave things alone.
I stepped into the apartment and closed the door. Her eyes flashed when I did that. Did I see a bit of fear?
“I saw him.”
“What?”
“I saw him. Karl. Last night, I dreamed of him.” I recited the images from my dream, told her about my nocturnal train ride that was both between the Irving Park and Addison Street stations and back in time.
Paula sat down at her table and lit a cigarette. “And you saw a foot on the bed?”
“Yeah. I bet it was Tommy’s.”
Paula considered this, and then shrugged. “What do you think it means?”
I had been waiting for the question, hoping she would ask it, so that the door would be opened to my theory.
I sat down quickly across from her. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I don’t want to open old wounds.” I paused and she nodded, looking longingly at her closed front door. I bet she was thinking if she had just gotten out of there five minutes sooner, she could have avoided all of this.
“Karl was crying, right?”
She nodded.
“I think he was crying because Tommy was dead.”
Paula shook her head. “No, no. They never found a body. If something had happened, Karl would have called an ambulance, called the police, even if it was an overdose or something.” She stared down at the table, and when she looked back up at me, her tears had wrecked her careful makeup job. There were black streaks down her cheeks. “Karl would have told me; he would have told Tommy’s family. You don’t know them. Tommy’s sister Amanda was a wreck.”
“I don’t know what else to think.”
Paula took a deep drag and inhaled the smoke almost angrily. “Oh shit, back at that time, when they were heavy into the drugs, it could have been a lot of things making him cry. They could have fought. Hell, I heard them screaming at each other and breaking things, especially when Miss Tina wasn’t available. And I know Karl sometimes got jealous.” She snuffed out her cigarette and placed her hand over mine. “Look, honey, I know you mean well, but leave this alone. No one knows what happened to Tommy. My guess is he went off with one of the many, many guys he had over when he was usin’.” She shrugged. “I gotta get to work.”
She scooted her chair out from the table and hurried into the bathroom, where, I assume, she was repairing the damage her tears had done to her face.
I called out, “Where’s Karl?”
She stuck her head out of the bathroom. She had removed the lines of mascara that had dripped down her face and had a washcloth in her hand. “What do you wanna know for?”
Should I tell her why I wanted to know? Would she tell me where he was, once she knew I wanted to pay him a visit? I thought for a while, listening as she readied herself to leave for the second time that morning. Water ran; the toilet flushed. And I still couldn’t think of a plausible reason why I wanted to see Karl, other than the truth.
Paula came back into the apartment proper and hoisted her big black bag over her shoulder. She was ready to go. “Really. Why do you want to know?”
“I want to go see him.”
She snorted. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s been hard for him to get over losing Tommy and you show up, asking your nutty questions, and it’ll be like ripping a scab off a wound.” She frowned. “No, it’s not a good idea, honey. You should leave this alone.”
“I wish I could!” All of the sudden, I felt on the verge of tears myself. “Please. Maybe if I could just talk to him, I could—” Even I didn’t know where I was going with this.
“You could what?”
I paused, considering, trying to think with my head instead of my heart. Even I thought this was crazy. “I don’t know. Maybe if we talked and I told him about my dreams, he would tell me if he knew something.”
“Tell you?” Paula laughed, and I had a glimpse of what an unkind Paula might be like. “Honey, you’re a stranger. Say your theory about him knowing something about Tommy’s disappearance was true. Why the hell would he talk to you about it?”
She had a point. Yet, I knew if I didn’t get to the bottom of this, I wouldn’t be able to find peace. In a weird sort of way, I thought these dreams were Tommy trying to tell me something. You can call me melodramatic or say I watch too much paranormal reality TV or too many horror movies, but something was nagging at me and not letting go. I felt as though our moving into that apartment had opened some sort of conduit. Why only with me, I had no idea, but there it was. But could I tell Paula any of this without her shooing me out of her apartment? I thought I could. After all, just a look around the place told me how much she believed in just the kinds of things I was thinking about.
“Look. You told me that you believed in an afterlife. You told me you thought there were things out there we couldn’t conveniently explain away. Maybe my dreams are one of those things. Is it so farfetched? Look at it objectively, Paula. I didn’t know Karl and Tommy, yet there they are in my dreams.
“And those dreams are different from the usual garden variety I’m used to having. They have an odd sort of reality to them, more like they’re memories or images of real events than dreams. They don’t even feel like they come from me.” I felt a ball forming in my throat and my eyes welling with hot tears. I pressed the palms of my hands to my eyes to force them away and took a few deep breaths to calm myself, to dissolve that lump lodged in my throat. I honestly couldn’t pin down from where these emotions were coming either. I forced myself to breathe normally and smile. “I think Tommy is trying to tell me something. I think he’s unhappy and something is unfinished.”
Paula sat down heavily on her couch and stared at her hands.
I came to sit beside her. “Paula. You cared about him.”
She looked up at me and nodded. “I sure did. My little Tommy,” she whispered, her voice almost a squeak.
“Do you really think he just walked away? You said he had family here; you told me he had a sister he really loved. Don’t you think, even if he was deep into drugs, he would have called someone? Just to let them know he’s alive?”
Paula’s lower lip trembled, and she drew herself up. I assumed she was looking for some of the same inner strength that I was.
In a soft voice that was completely unlike her, she said, “When I say Tommy maybe ran off…When I say Tommy was a flake…When I say he just let the drugs get to him and he wasn’t Tommy anymore, that’s me, keeping a little door open. You know? A little door to hope.” She hung her head and her shoulders shook; she sniffed. After a few moments, she allowed herself to look at me, but her eyes were red-rimmed. “Why did you have to come along with your dreams?” She swallowed, and I suspected she had that same big ball of something burning in her throat as well. “I know. I know there must be something to it. You’re right. Tommy wouldn’t have just left and never been in touch again.
“But I don’t think Karl had anything to do with it. I don’t know what happened or why, but you don’t know Karl. He’s a sweetie; he’d never hurt his Tommy. He loved that boy! Even with all the drugs and the other guys, he never stopped loving him.”
/>
The two of us sat quietly for a long time. I listened as the trains rumbled by and the quality of the light changed in the room. I knew it was getting late in the morning and that Paula was too distressed to go to work. I had made her this way, but in an odd way, I didn’t feel guilty about it. Some of this had to be a catharsis.
Paula stood and dug in her purse. She brought out her cell and punched in a number. “Keith? Hey, it’s Paula. Listen, I got a bug or something and I don’t feel so hot, so I’m gonna stay home today.” She paused. “Sure, I will. Bye.”
She turned to me. “You really want to continue on with this? This whole mess doesn’t have to mean anything to you. It’s old news and nothing to do with you and that cute boyfriend of yours.” She grinned. “Oh yeah, I’ve seen him. I’m jealous.” She held the phone up. “I can call Karl, or we can just try to forget this. If I call him, you realize you might be opening a door to something you can’t shut, you know?”
I thought about my dreams and the nagging sensation that something outside myself was propelling me to action. And, finally, I thought Paula knew as well as I did, that we needed to go on.
“Call him.”
Chapter 6
We were on our way to the Western stop on the Brown Line. It was my former stop, my old neighborhood, just minutes away from my new one. How odd that Karl and I had simply changed places. Perhaps our moving vans passed as we made our way to different lives.
Karl, of course, didn’t want to meet with us. Paula pleaded with him, and while he still didn’t invite us to wherever he lived now, he did agree to meet us at the Starbucks on Lincoln and Wilson. He said he only had a half hour or so, then he had to get to work.
I laughed as we got off the train, not because anything was funny, but simply because I was suddenly so nervous.
Paula looked back. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh God, nothing. This. This whole situation. I never would have believed I’d be doing this a week ago.”
We headed down the stairs and out of the station. A train rumbled on the tracks above us. This used to be my old stop. We headed south.
“What’s he like?”
“Karl?” Paula shrugged. “He’s a nice guy. Not as crazy as Tommy was…” She stopped herself when I think she realized she referred to Tommy in the past tense. “Not as crazy as Tommy, but sweet. He’s worked hard to rebuild after Tommy left.”
Even though the day was bright and sunny, there was still a snap of cold in the air. It felt good once we got inside the Starbucks, warm, the place redolent with the smell of fresh ground coffee and scalded milk.
We stood near the door, looking for Karl.
What if he didn’t show up? He didn’t have to. And based on what I knew of his sad history, I could see why he could change his mind and want to steer as far clear of the guy living in his old apartment as possible.
But if he didn’t show up, where would it leave me?
With a nagging hole in my psyche and no way to fill it, that’s where. I didn’t know if I could bear it. This was something that, somehow, had to get settled.
Paula said, “There’s Karl.” And I looked to where she had nodded.
He sat at a table near the back of the café, his head down over a cup of something. He clung to it, as if it was keeping him warm.
I had expected to see a man in the same sad shape that Tommy was in, the ravages of crystal meth addiction apparent on his body and face, but that wasn’t the case. Karl looked like he had in the photo Paula had shown me—vital, alive, his streaked hair perhaps a little darker and more uniform, and perhaps even a bit stockier. The signs were there that he had left his old pal Tina behind.
And that was good.
We approached the table, and he grinned when he saw Paula. But when his eyes fell upon me, he frowned. He stood up, and he and Paula exchanged pleasantries and hugged. She scolded him for not being in better touch. When Paula introduced Karl to me, I reached out to shake his hand.
The touch of his hand was electric. Very quickly, I had an image of him dragging a long, sheet-wrapped bundle. And then the image vanished before I could place it in any sort of context. Still, it shook me up.
“Nice to meet you,” Karl said.
“You too.” I looked around, needing a moment away. I didn’t know how ready I was to talk. “Listen, I’m gonna get myself a latte. Paula, what do you want? And Karl, can I get you some more of whatever you’ve got there?”
Paula ordered a plain drip coffee, black, and Karl said he was fine.
When I returned to the table, both Karl and Paula were quiet. Paula stared at the other people in the coffee shop—an older woman with a laptop, and a group of kids playing hooky from high school I would guess. Karl continued to look morosely down into his cup.
I realized it was going to be difficult to broach the subject we had come here to talk about. I could see the discomfort on Paula’s face as she sipped. She was usually so brassy, loud-mouthed, and talkative. Even in the very short time I had known her, I knew that this withdrawn, quiet state was completely out of character.
My eyes met Karl’s. We stared at one another for a long moment, and I felt some sort of connection. I wish I could describe it, put into words what it meant, but I was clueless. I only knew that I felt something strange, something electric, when I stared into his eyes. I almost wanted to say, “You know, don’t you?” But I censored myself, thinking just how loony that would sound.
He drew his gaze away first. His voice was cold. “Is there a purpose to this meeting, Paula? Some of us have to get to work.” He glanced over at me. “I don’t know who this joker is, but I’m not looking for any new guy in my life if that’s what you’re about.” He took a breath and a sip of his coffee. “And the fact that he lives in my old place, well, that’s supposed to mean what to me?”
Should I just come out with it? How could I tell him about the dreams without him thinking I was a nutcase? And if he did have something to do with Tommy’s disappearance, was this meeting opening a door to danger?
I drank my latte, not tasting it, and wishing I had thought this through more before we had gotten on the train and come over here. But yet, even as Paula was dialing Karl’s number, I had felt something outside myself was propelling me. It was almost as if I had no choice.
Paula broke the silence. “Rick here, as you know, lives in your old place. And—it’s the weirdest thing—ever since he and his boyfriend Ernie moved in, he’s had these odd dreams.”
“So?” Karl no longer met my eyes.
“They’re about you and Tommy.” She turned to me. “Why don’t you tell him about them, Rick?”
I froze. For several moments, it felt as though I couldn’t speak.
Karl returned his gaze to me, scowling. And finally, it was he who spoke, not me. “I don’t want to hear it.” He stood up. “I don’t know what this is about, but it doesn’t interest me.”
“Sit back down, honey. You work from home, for cryin’ out loud.” Paula tried to placate him.
But Karl was having none of it. He got up from the table so quickly his coffee cup overturned and a pool of milky brown liquid began to widen on the table before us. Paula scooted back quickly to protect her clothes, blotting at the puddle with the paper napkins I had brought back to the table. “Jesus!” she cried. She called after Karl’s departing figure, “Karl! Karl, come back here. We just want to talk to you, sweetie!”
Everyone else went quiet, staring at us. Heat rose to my face as I watched Karl exit the café. In seconds, though, the storm had passed, and everyone went back to what they were doing before Karl rushed out.
“I don’t know what to say.” Paula continued to blot up the spilled coffee. “He’s usually not like that. Karl was always the nice one; the one who couldn’t even hang up on a telemarketer.”
Again, I felt this almost irresistible pull to do a thing I wouldn’t normally do. “I have to go after him.” I half rose out of my seat.
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�Oh, honey, I don’t think you should. What do you think it will get you?” She slid the pile of sopping napkins to the side of the table. “You should leave this alone.”
“I have to go after him.” And suddenly, nothing seemed more imperative. I left Paula sitting slack jawed at the table and hurried out of Starbucks.
Chapter 7
Once outside, I thought I had lost Karl. There were lots of people on Lincoln Avenue, but not one of them looked like him. I turned and looked north, where the el tracks made a kind of bridge over the street, and didn’t see him. I looked south, where I could see downtown’s buildings in the distance, but no Karl. I hurried to the corner, looked east on Wilson Avenue, and spotted him.
He was rapidly heading east, casting looks every few minutes or so behind him. Probably worried that I had taken it upon myself to do the very thing I was doing. It didn’t take him long to spot me. He stopped in his tracks, and even from the distance of half a block or so, I could tell he blew out a frustrated sigh. He crossed his arms and stood facing me, not moving, his legs planted wide apart.
I hurried to catch up to him, smiling in a way I just knew looked foolish, but I couldn’t help myself.
When I reached him, I blurted out, “I’m sorry, but we have to talk.”
His reply was almost a scream, high-pitched and tortured. His tone and reaction told me a lot. “I don’t want to.”
I tried to put a placating hand on his shoulder as a bus roared by, but he shrugged it away. I leaned in close and talked in as soft and reasonable a voice as I could muster. “I know you don’t want to. But you know we have to.”
“Why do I know that?” He eyed me impatiently.
“I don’t know. I could tell by the way you looked at me. You know something.” And then it came to me, unbidden, but clear and unquestionable. “You’ve been having dreams, too.” The look on his face, the shock and fear, confirmed everything.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” I said calmly.
His face twitched, and he looked all around, as if his savior might be hiding somewhere nearby, right there on Wilson Avenue. He shook his head, and I wasn’t sure at all I was going to get anywhere with him. But I had to try.
Unhinged Page 4